February postcard swap

Here is my February postcard for the monthly swap on UK Stampers.  The theme was "Circles", and for some reason that immediately made me think of chain-mail!  I got the 3 digi images from 123rf.com, and then spent a merry time manipulating them and piecing the picture together with glue.

The chain-mail image didn't have an "edge", so I had to digitally remove a lot of overlapping circles, to produce the dropped "stitch" and the top row of circles.  The needle is a separate piece of paper, which I "wove" through fussy-cut circles.  There are 3 or 4 layers in that top row, and disguising the joins was a nightmare!

I had trouble finding a suitable image of a woman - I wanted a medieval woman looking shocked, but all I could find was either a medieval woman looking smug, or a modern woman looking shocked, so I had to settle for the modern woman.  The needle caused problems too - there wasn't much choice, and although I successfully isolated a needle from an image, I couldn't make it appear properly cylindrical.  By the time I had everything printed out and had started gluing, I was beginning to wish I had thought of a simpler design!

Luckily, I found that my purple Promarker reacted exactly the same on the card and the printed paper, so the background was easy.  Last of all I stamped the text, letter by letter, having very carefully planned it out so that it fitted the space.  After all that effort, I dropped the very last stamp, and got a double image!  I did a bit of cursing, but decided I just couldn't face doing the whole postcard again,  so I hope Pam, to whom I sent my card, will not mind the slight flaw.

As the postcard had to be sent "naked", I covered it with matte multi-medium, in the hope that the paper-piecing will survive the post.  Unfortunately, I touched it too soon, and pulled off a little of the needle image.  One more slight flaw, that I hope Pam will forgive!